Weve got some good news and some bad news. The good news? Glenns alive. The bad news? See the good news.
Years from now hell, months from now when The Walking Deads sixth season is up on Netflix and the streaming crowd is binging it, the wholedeath of Glenn bait-and-switch may be no big deal. People will only have to wait hours, not weeks, before they find out whats what. And they wont have dealt with the incessant Internet chatter, fan theories (Damn, Glenn got ate! Nope, he ducked under a dumpster!), and cryptic postmortem interviews that popped up in between.
Right here and now, though? Its hard to understand the point of all this tomfoolery. To make faithful viewers feel like idiots for prematurely mourning a beloved character? To generate some buzz around a show that doesnt really need it? It surely wasnt to strengthen the storytelling, because Glenns survival actually screws that up on two levels. For one, it unravels the spiky compassion kills theme that had been clinging tightly to the seasons first four episodes. Mistakes usually have more serious consequences in TWD. The death of Nicholas doesnt qualify.
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More importantly, an improbable escape defuses tension, which isnt a smart choice for an action-horror show. Case-in-point: After Glenn got away this week, he ran into Enid, who pulled a pistol on him when he told her they needed to go back to Alexandria. One of the great strengths of this series has always been that anyone can die at any time, but did anybody watching this episode expect that gun to off? Granted, that wouldve been a seriously gutsy move on the writers part kill Glenn, wait a few weeks, bring him back, and then immediately blow him away. But it was also highly unlikely, and as a result the entire scene come off flat.
Because this weeks episode Heads Up puts its big twist before the opening credits, the rest of the show feels especially anticlimactic. For the third week in a row, The Walking Dead didnt really advance the plot in any significant way, at least until the end. (More on that in a moment.) Instead, this was another low-boil hour of training and arguments, threaded between superfluous scenes of Rick soaking up the awe of the Alexandrians. Carl and his dad helped Jessies son, Ron, learn how to shoot, while some of the other locals got a lesson in swordplay. And in the one real moment of action, Deanna Monroes son, Spencer, tried to rope his way over the massing zombie hordes, in a headstrong attempt to restart the process of leading the undead away from town. Instead he fell, and cost the good guys some irreplaceable bullets during a successful rescue attempt.
The Spencer falls, everybody panics, Spencers saved sequence was pretty much par for the course. After a strong stretch of episodes, the shows been in stall mode, introducing complications only to erase them and restore the status quo. Sometimes, like with the near-death experience of young Mr. Monroe, its happened in just a few minutes; and sometimes its taken an entire hour, like in Daryls circular Always Accountable storyline. With Glenn, the writers made us wait an unreasonably long time before they pressed the reset button.
What makes this all so frustrating is that anyone familiar with the source material knows the comics start getting really interesting around this point, by bringing in new characters and new challenges, based around the idea of what it actually takes to rebuild human society. Last week introduced some of those newcomers: enforcers from another community, sure to come back into play soon. And this week teased Deannas plan to start growing crops and expanding the Alexandria Safe Zone. But these have just been reminders of what the show could be doing right now, rather than almost offing folks.
That said, all the recent navel-gazing and near-misses hasnt been a total waste of time. Morgan gives the proceedings a dramatic boost by answering to Rick and Michonne about his decision to set free a few of the invading Wolves the same group that nearly killed our leader a few weeks back. The man with the ass-kicking stick skills made some strong points about the vagaries of cause-and-effect, pointing out that because Rick saved his life eons ago, he then saved Aaron and Daryl, in a rescue operationwhich ended up tipping off the Wolves. If theres one theme that has been holding strong this year, its the classic one about best laid plans.
This weeks chapter also ended on a strong note, with a scene of Ron walking behind Carl with a secretly loaded gun, followed soon after by a shot of a tower collapsing. Next weeks fall finale could be a return to the relentless intensity that served the early part of this season so well. Zombies streaming into town, a creepy armed Ron running amok, and Daryl due back any minute? Yes, thatll do.
Still, after this weeks unfortunate resurrection, its going to take a lot of clever plotting to rebuild trust among a fanbase that may have been faked out a few too many times. Once the heroes have dealt with this latest crisis with, like it or not, Glenns help its time for things to start happening again. Things that matter. Things that stick.
Previously: Truth or Daryl?